Editorial

Getting Ready for Y2K

by Fred E. Foldvary, Senior Editor

Friday, October 1, will start fiscal year 2000 for the federal
government. The global economy will be in its last quarter of the
year, and the world will be marching inexorably to Y2K, year 2000.
Households, businesses, and governments have spent billions of
dollars to fix the computer problem of a two-digit year.

We are getting statements that the financial system and utilities
will be ready, although qualified that there are no guarantees.
But many of these reports are just "boilerplate," standardized and
pre-packaged generalities, and some are misleading or premature.
For example, the US Social Security system was declared ready, but
it turns out that the SS Administration is still correcting errors.

The American Bankers Association has even written a Y2k sermon for
churches to use saying that the banking system is safe. While it's
good to avoid panic, the fact that bankers are using religion to
help calm the public may itself raise questions about how ready
they are. Have you ever heard a sermon telling us not to worry
about natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes?

A recent survey of large US companies and government agencies found
that many of the respondents are expecting a negative economic
impact from Y2K. They are even more pessimistic than they were 18
months ago.

Even if a large firm is Y2K-ready, if its suppliers are not, then
its operations will suffer. And surveys have found that many small
companies are not sufficiently testing and fixing their computer
systems. Many enterprises and governments in Asia, Latin America,
and Eastern Europe are also in danger of not being Y2K-compliant.

Many organizations which are busy fixing their computer systems are
facing delays in their schedules. As any computer programmer
knows, when a large system has to be changed, often they do not
meet the deadline because of unforeseen problems or unrealistic
time estimates. And when changes are made to large computer
systems, often new bugs, errors, are introduced. Moreover, the
real test is in the actual operation, since planned tests of large
complex systems cannot anticipate all possible inputs.

Many organizations are now making plans for alternative operations
in case their computer systems are faulty or their supplies are
blocked. Many organizations have already found computer failures
when their new Y2K systems were installed. In some cases, they
just went back to using the old system. But that will no longer
work in January 2000. More and more, organizations are making
contingency plans, but these alternatives will tend to be much less
efficient than computerized operations, and some processes have no
realistic manual alternatives.

The US Navy conducted a study on how its bases would be affected by
possible disruptions of local services. They sent questions to the
local utilities, and compiled the results into a database. The
spreadsheet is available at http://www.nfesc.navy.mil/y2k, where
you may click on the utility master list. The database shows that
some cities might have problems with electricity, gas, water and
sewerage. And there are many towns and cities not listed because
there is no nearby naval facility.

Just think what would happen if the sewage system is down and folks
can't use the toilet. People won't go to work if the potties are
not flushing. The city's production will be in the toilet until
the sewers get fixed.

Then there was a report from the United Nations International Y2K
Cooperation Center. It asked 195 countries to report on their Y2K
preparations. Most countries, including Germany and Japan, chose
not to reply to the request. If they had good news, would you not
think they would be glad to report it?

I have a suggestion to ministers, rabbis, priests, and other preacher
men. Don't give the banker Y2K sermon. What if the Banker
Association is wrong, and there are major problems in January?
Then the preacher would look bad, and he would be an accomplice to
the public's lack of preparation. What you should tell your
congregation instead is, "Think for yourself!"

Prudent supplies of water, food, and medicine are a good insurance
against disruptions, such as caused by natural disasters, even
without Y2K. Keeping some savings in safe vehicles such as US
treasury bill funds may also be prudent. Such low-cost preparation
seems to be the golden mean between the extremes of just ignoring
the problem and going berserk with costly stockpiles.

Copyright 1999 by Fred E. Foldvary. All rights reserved. No part of this
material may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, which includes but is not limited to facsimile
transmission, photocopying, recording, rekeying, or using any information
storage or retrieval system, without giving full credit to Fred Foldvary
and The Progress Report.